Sunday, November 22, 2009

Glowing Report

A spokesbeing for the Department of Clean Coal and Sustainable Uranium, who is surnamed after a natural device for processing waste and pissing on whatever might present itself to be pissed on, has refused to give details of five separate security breaches at nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom. The breaches, according to the Office for Civil Nuclear Security, were of the sort that "warranted further investigation and subsequent follow-up action"; which could entail anything from trespassing through vandalism and theft of nuclear material or "sensitive nuclear information" to setting off a bomb. The uranium-urinary spokesbeing gave the universal password "national security reasons", stating that any attempt to reassure the public in this matter would be tantamount to assisting "a person or group planning theft, blackmail, sabotage and other malevolent or illegal acts" which are properly the exclusive province of governments and their more or less deniable operatives. A consultant on nuclear security observed that "three years ago, the OCNS's annual report recorded eight breaches in information security, and at that time the nuclear security regulator was prepared to reveal that these included 'the theft of laptops from parked vehicles' and 'inappropriate transmission of restricted information over the internet"; and, with typical scientific uncharitability, implied that the Department of Clean Coal and Sustainable Uranium might be suffering from "an acute atomic insecurity". Well, really.